Painting the Slender Loris

Lorises always look so soft and plushy. And they have strangely human arms and legs. Many of the photos I found had them crunching on bugs and lizards. Baby lorises are both very cute and a bit scary. I tried to make the other paintings without any sort of background or "props" other than the animal, but I couldn't come up with a natural pose of a slender loris without a tree limb.

Slender Loris

The Slender Loris, Loris tardigradus, is a nocturnal primate found in Sri Lankan forests. It eats insects, small vertebrates, flowers, and tree gum. The tailless animal spends much of the day rolled in a ball sleeping, sometimes in groups. Slender lorises rarely leave the trees. This species is hunted for folk medicines and meat; its habitat is also being destroyed.

EDGE Focal Species

The ZSL has chosen ten high-ranking species to be the focal species for 2007. These animals had little or no conservation attention, and will be researched further. Here are this year's focal species.

Yangtze River dolphin – Lipotes vexillifer
Long-beaked echidna – Zaglossus bruijni
Hispaniolan solenodon – Solenodon paradoxus
Bactrian camel – Camelus bactrianus
Pygmy hippopotamus – Hexaprotodon liberiensis
Slender loris – Loris tardigradus
Hirola – Damaliscus hunteri
Golden-rumped elephant shrew – Rhynchocyon chrysopygus
Bumblebee bat – Craseonycteris thonglongyai
Long-eared jerboa – Euchoreutes naso